Because. That’s Why. Day 15

Today I was reading a blog and the author brought up an interesting point:

“I mean, how many times have you heard parents answering the child’s genuine question “Why?” with the words “just because” / “because! (with high pitch sound) / “because this is what it is” / “because this is how it works” and the most famous one: “Because I said so”.

How many parents do you know that actually take the time to explain the child the exact mechanics, relationships and the time lines involves within the child’s questions? How many parents actually considered the child’s ability to understand a point so specifically despite of their young age and lack of experience in life?
How many parents justified for themselves that there is no point in explaining the nitty gritty details to the child because the child would not be able to comprehend it anyway?”

From what I have observed, almost every parent does this. So the question is: WHY?  And the answer is: Not simply BECAUSE.  There’s actual explanations of WHY this is happening and it all starts with the parents.

The Problem:

Often times a child asks the parent questions about how the world works are within this they will repeatedly ask ‘why’ – this is not a question without purpose as the child is actually wanting to learn how their world and everything within it works.  Sometimes the parent will answer the questions, sometimes the parent will work with the child to investigate the answers, and sometimes the parent will say, “Because.”  The answer, “Because,” is the problem here.  I have observed parents answering, “Because,” when: The parent is distracted, the parent is doing something that they do not want to stop doing, the parent is doing something that they can’t, for some reason, stop doing to answer a question, the parent literally does not hear the child and their automatic programmed response to the Word, ‘Why’ is with the Word, ‘Because’, or the parent does not know the answer and says, “Because! That’s why. That’s all you need to know.”

I say this problem begins with the parent as the parent of the child asking WHY was once the child asking WHY of their parents and they got the same BECAUSE answer.  Another point to consider is that in Crisis Intervention training we were told specifically to not ask, “Why?” and to instead ask, “How come?” as a person’s immediate response to the Word WHY is ‘because’ and from here, the person shuts down and usually will stop communication. We were told that the reason for this is goes back to childhood to when and as the parent would ask the child, “WHY did you do this?” and as a child they did not have an answer, reason, nor the vocabulary to explain to the parent why they did what they did and aware that they were in trouble and that they had no choice but  to say something so they answer with, “Because …”

So, has the Word BECAUSE has become an expression of: I don’t know the answer and I fear that?  Do we become paranoid when we hear the Word WHY? What happens when we hear the Word WHY?  We react because in our minds we have associated the Word WHY to past memories or experiences that may have been uncomfortable or even traumatic. We will dismiss the Word WHY, try to separate ourselves from the Word as quickly as possible, we become frustrated with the Word, and/or we will just not hear the Word WHY at all.

The Solution

Instead of answering, “Because,” when a child asks, “Why?”, answer the question.  When and as we aren’t certain about the answer, research for the answer with the child.  The child will then associate the Word WHY will research, investigation, and finding answers for questions that aren’t yet defined or explainable.  If we are busy or have our attention focused on something of importance at that moment, simply set a time for when the question can be researched and/or answered to the best of our ability. When making a decision of whether or not to stop what you’re doing to answer a question or not, suggest to see:  We have a small amount of time within which to educate our children and an even smaller amount of time to assist a child with living expressions of Words.  The time goes by quickly and when it’s done, it’s done – there’s no going back.

The Reward

The child will be less-likely to react to the Word WHY in a way that is not best for them and instead they will come to live the Word WHY as a cool and fun expression of finding the answers.  The child will be better equipped for assistance and support when and as they are on their own in the world as they will have the tools for self-support and not react to the trigger Word WHY from others who may be assisting them with points in their life.  The parent in the child will establish an actual relationship of trust with themselves and each other as we give as we would like to be given and work together to find out how this world functions, why things work the way they do, and look at, discuss, and continue to ask questions about how we can improve upon what’s here.

One Anger, One Choice – Day 14

Here concluding Self-Correction and Self-Commitment statements for How Do I Control My Anger? – Day 1. See Days 2–13 for previous Writings, Self-Forgiveness, Self-Correction, and Self-Commitment.

When and as I see that I am angry, I stop – I see, realize, and understand that I am in-fact angry at myself and that this self-anger is a consequence of me not being self-honest. Instead of allowing myself to project, suppress, run away from, hide from, ignore, push away and/or get caught up in my mind with my anger and backchat, I breath and allow myself to investigate the core/source/origin of my anger.

When and as I see that I resist facing my anger, I remind myself that I am going to experience this anger – one way or another – so, I take the opportunity to face my anger here: moment-to-moment in breath.

I commit myself to remind myself that there exists only ONE kind of Anger – Anger at Myself. Within reminding myself of this, I will better assist and support myself in bringing the points of anger back to myself and not allow myself to separate myself from my anger.

I commit myself to stopping my anger and myself from accumulating suppressed anger by establishing a relationship of self-honesty with myself. I allow myself to experience my anger that emerges within and as me and face my self-dishonesty with the tools of writing and self-forgiveness — and then, self-correct myself with/as/to self-honesty and commit myself to change so that I never again accept and allow myself to live in a way that is not aligned with who/what I really am and/or is best for me to be.

When and as I see that I am faced with anger, I allow myself to stop, breath, and ask myself: Why am I angry? Where did this anger start? Which points in my world have I not been honest with myself in relation to this anger?

I commit myself to, when angry, breathing, slowing myself, and asking myself, “WHY am I angry? WHERE did this anger start? WHICH POINTS in my world have I not been honest with myself about?” As this will assist and support me within my investigation of myself, my self-forgiveness process, and my commitment to stopping myself from existing within and as anger and suppressed anger.

I commit myself to no longer attempt force another to experience my anger so that I do not have to – within this, I remind myself that when another is directing their anger at me to not take it personal as this will assist and support me in stopping myself from directing my anger at another, separating myself from myself, and participating-in/creating unnecessary conflict.

I commit myself to not allowing myself to express my anger/outrage within a fight, battle, and or competition with another – I allow myself to breath, not become angry, not participate in the fight/battle/competition game and to wait it out until the energy runs out.

When and as I see that I am allowing fear, guilt, shame, sadness, regret, distrust, not being good enough, and inferiority to in a moment change how I direct my living, I stop. I assist and support myself to release myself from fear, guilt, shame, sadness, regret, distrust, not being good enough, and inferiority, with self-forgiveness so that I can transform myself and no longer accept and allow myself as having limited potential as a human being. I see, realize, and understand that these thoughts, emotions, and backchat are the core/source/origin point of my self-dishonesty and so my anger – I allow myself to take the opportunity to no longer accept and allow this self-dishonesty to exist within and as me.

I commit myself to allowing myself to see, realize, and understand where/how I have been accepting and allowing myself to exist as fear, guilt, shame, sadness, regret, distrust, not being good enough, inferiority, and other dishonesties. I allow myself to realize that there could be better existence for me by reminding myself that I can no longer accept that I have limited potential as a human being and that I can transform myself – I have the tools, I have support, and I have physical time.

I commit myself to no longer accept the idea/belief that I am separate from what exists. I allow myself to educate myself, align myself with what is here, and self-forgive myself for everything.

I commit myself to removing the values I’ve placed on myself, my self-interest and what exists in the world with investigation, writing, and self-forgiveness. With self-correction and self-commitment, I work on replacing my previous/current value system with the value of life equal.

On Death

We recently had a death in the family.  It was a family member that my son had a relationship with.

To begin, when I got ‘the call’ that this family member had passed away, I stayed calm, and immediately directed myself to stay at home with my son while the rest of the family rushed to support G,  the wife of the person who died.  I also made the decision to not tell my son about the death on that day in the event that his father or other members of the family came to our house with reactions.  I saw that it was my ‘job’ to prevent my son from connecting death to reactions.  When his father came home that night, we quietly and calmly shared and discussed any points, concerns, events, and experiences that had happened in the home of the dead person.  As far as my son was concerned, this day was like any other day in his world.

I decided that it was best if I were to stay home and support my son through the week so I called my boss who gave me several days off.

The day after the death, I turned off all the media in our home and asked my son to come sit with me because we had something to discuss.  He came up and sat next to me on the couch and breathed to make sure that I was clear before I began speaking.  I began by referring to our dog, Jake, that we had ‘put down’ last year and said, “So, last year Jake died. And when he died, he died he was gone.” My son said, “Yes,” and I continued, “Like Jake, P has died.  And he is gone.”

“P is dead?”

“Yes, he is dead.”

My son let out a short cry – it was a cry that was familiar to both of us as it’s more of a sniffling-whine that he attempts to use to get something that he wants. And as he let out this ‘cry’, he said, “BUT I WILL MISS HIM.”  When he expressed this with the ‘cry’, I saw my son hear himself, he sniffed once, and he stopped as he was aware that this cry was something that we’ve discussed and proven to be ‘fake’.  From here, my son began talking in his ‘normal’ tone and we discussed his concerns and answered his questions.  When the discussion ended, I told my son that I had taken the week off from work and that I would be here for him -all week- to support him.  He was cool with this.

We continued to stay home together while the family gathered each night.  I did not see it as best for him to connect ‘G falling apart’ with death.  We did not participate until the funeral.

At the funeral, my son did fine.  He supported his family member by going up to hug her as she was bent over and crying at the casket.  And that is all.  It was done.  When we got in our vehicle and left the cemetery, he reacted in anger that he did not get to see ‘P’s dead body’.   His father and I explained that it was ‘just a dead body’, however, this child really wanted to make that connection so we made an agreement that we would investigate what dead bodies looked like on-line – he was cool with this.

Last night, my son was watching a movie where a dog had died and the cast of characters worked together to bring the dog ‘back to life’.  Seeing this created Hope within him and he became excited and exclaimed, “Wait! I can bring Jake back! And P!”  I told him that in real life, this does not happen – once we are die, we are gone, and we cannot come back.  He said, “Yeah … I know.” He was disappointed – even though, what he has seen and learned from life that beings do not come back when we die.  He wanted to believe – and I understand this because I live this myself – I hope and I believe because I do not want to experience my fear of loss, my fear of the future, and my fear of death.  It is easier to ignore our disappointment over-and-over-and-over again rather than face our fears and figure out where these fears come from – and so we fall into the trap of Hope, Belief, and misplaced Trust.

We call this LIVING?

And the cycle continues …

Cycles are easy.  But cycles, patterns, or anything we do over and over and over and over again, get us no where.

And running in the same pattern day-in and day-out – how is that we can call this ‘Living’?

Okay, so we may be ‘fine’ and ‘comfortable’ with our patterns – I mean, hey, they’re predictable – don’t worry NOTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE.  PHEW.  And we may see our fear of change and we may even be aware of what created it but do we change?  No man, it’s comfortable.

So, my question is:  Is this really what we want for our kids?  Suggest for parents and future parents to be self-honest about this point because if we ‘just aren’t interested’ or are ‘just not into’ bettering ourselves or breaking out of these patterns, then our kids don’t have a chance.  One can start by investigating ‘Hope’ and watch how our children are being ‘fed’ with it by the media, other parents, grandparents, our friends, etc.  Is a life of disappointment what we want for our kids?

So, suggest to understand where our hope is coming from and begin the process of removal of hope, faith, beliefs, and misplaced trust.  A cool starting point is by taking the DIPLite course.  It’s free and you’ll have a buddy to support you through your process of educating yourself and thus have the tools to teach the children what opportunities are available to us in this Life.

The Wellchild Visit

This past week, my 5-year-old son went to the doctor’s office for his ‘Wellchild Visit’.  When we got in the room, they gave us a book – which must be a requirement for our state because each time we have one of these ‘Wellchild Visits’, they hand us a book.

During this visit, our medical care-giver tested my child to make certain that he had ‘basic skills’ for his specific age group such as counting to 10, color recognition, recitation of ABC’s, familiarity with brushing teeth, etc.  Also, at this ‘visit’, they give the child a series of vaccinations.  My child did fine up until the mention of getting ‘shots’ and then he panicked.

Wellchild Visit Vaccine Schedule

First, he worked on reasoning with us adults as he said, “Nah.  I don’t need any shots today.  I’m fine.”  When we told him that the vaccinations were a way of protecting him from diseases in the world that could make him sick or harm him, he said, “I don’t need to worry about that.”

And after our medical care-giver left the room, my son said, “C’mon, mom.  Let’s go.  We’re leaving.”  I explained that we’d be staying and that it was best if we get this done now, be done with it, move on with our day, and go on an adventure to the toy store.  He accepted this.

So, we waited for the nurses to come into the room and give my son his vaccinations. And waited.  And waited. AND WAITED … both my son and I were getting annoyed because we’d agreed to a plan of getting this over and getting on with life – and yet, for the next 20 minutes to a half-hour, they had my 5-year-old in anticipation of the pain to come – which was torturous for him.  I read him a few stories out of the book they gave us which assisted but he was struggling to remain stable.  He started to play with the ‘spinning’ trash can lid in the room, pinched his finger in it and started screaming, crying, and jumping around.  I assisted him in working through the pain with breathing and he calmed down after a few moments.

Two nurses arrived with 4 needles – one for each vaccination.  My son went into a ‘fight-or-fight’ response and started screaming, crying, reaching for his jacket, and backing himself up to the door.  I breathed.  I did not react.  I kept my voice stable and delivered the same message: Let’s get this done so that we can get on with the rest of our day and have an adventure.

After repeating this 4 or 5 times and not changing, he stopped and came over to where I was sitting on the examination table.  He got up in my lap and I wrapped my arms around him.  The nurses gave him a choice of where to have his shots – in his arms or in his legs – he chose his legs.  So, I assisted him with removing his pants and the two nurses gave him two shots in each leg.  It was painful.  It was not cool.  We breathed through the pain.

His legs ‘stung’ and he could not walk after the shots.  We waited until some of the stinging went away.  He pushed.  And eventually we got his clothes back on him and left.  Throughout the toy store, he struggled with the pain – and he breathed through each ‘wave’ of pain.  He decided to purchase a game that he could play with his dad.  We came home.  He curled up on the couch and played with his dad.

Two hours later… My son could not walk at all.  He kept breathing.  And at 12:00 AM, he was crying and moaning because he was in pain and could not get comfortable to sleep.  He would ask me to come into his room and move his body because he could not. This pain and not being able to walk lasted well into the next day.

So yeah.  I’m outraged.  Why … in 2012 are medical practitioners -still- subjecting children to this kind of pain?  And why are they giving our children MORE shots?  When my daughter was my son’s age, she would get one or two shots.  But he got 4 …

In my imagination, we ought to be giving vaccinations ‘Star Trek’-style by now where a doctor presses a metal thing to our skin, presses a button, a ‘puff’ is heard, and a pain-free administration of a drug is given.

Star Trek ‘Jet Injector’ made a reality at MIT where they invented a painless, programmable hyperspray.

But we’re not getting anywhere.  Why would we?  Truth is, we’re killing kids everyday – we don’t care.  In-fact, the way we see it is: Be grateful to have the vaccinations – you’re lucky to be getting them at all.

In an Equal Money System, all beings will be given prevention and protection from the diseases in our current environments.  Additionally, I see us investigating ways of administering disease prevention and protection that do not cause trauma or disability to our physical bodies as this is a point of real caring.  For our children, not reacting, practicing breathing, and bringing the child’s attention ‘elsewhere’ assists in the young mind not making a future character/personality and/or fear connection to ‘Shots’ – however, it does not assist us parents in establishing a relationship of trust with our children and it does not assist the child in establishing a relationship of trust with those that are supposedly ‘taking care’ of their bodies.  Further, this sort of pain at this age moves the child to DISTRUST and SEPARATE themselves from their bodies.

Pain is not cool.  And it’s really screwed up that we try to come up with justifications for pain, like, “Pain lets you know you’re alive.”

This is what we’ve come to … getting the ‘knowledge’ that we’re ‘alive’ from pain.  We do not see that the only true show of being a life is with each moment of every breath.

So. Pain it is. It’s real sad that this is what life has come to – and even more sad that we’re passing this on to our children so that they can survive in this pain. It makes less-and-less sense to me each day why, practically here, we ever allowed it to get this far.  And why do we keep bringing children into this? Really?  I mean, if they’re not getting shot at school, they’re guaranteed to get a ‘shot’ at the doctors office.  And do we really know what that needle is loaded with? Seriously, there was something nasty enough in there to disable my 5-year-old for close to 24 hours.

Again, suggest to support an Equal Money System, parents – let’s support all the children, support the research, and show, for the first time ever in history, that we can be trusted with the lives we’ve given and been given.

Let’s just get this done and get on with an adventure.

Don’t Bite Your Friends!

My son has been ill for several days – he’s had a fever, his nose has been stuffed up, he’s been sleeping a lot during the day and then he developed a swollen gland.  I took him to the ‘doctor’ (Physician’s Assistant) yesterday and it was determined that he has strep throat.  So we’re on the road to recovery now but man, it’s been rough as he’s incredibly needy when he’s sick and up every 1-2 hours during the night crying for me.

I’ve experienced myself as ‘worn down’ in a way but not entirely –  I’m not as ‘cranky’ as I expected so my ‘mood’ hasn’t changed.  Difficulty expressing what is is exactly that I am and I’m hesitant to describe myself as more ‘open’.  Perhaps that is it.

A Blue Pussy, a Dildo, a Robot, a Uterus, a bi-polar Stoner, and a Furry DJ teaching our children Morals.

Last night, the TV was playing in the background and it was on a child’s show called ‘Yo Gabba Gabba!’.  This show has always fascinated me because the characters are a reflection of us and what is here as their physical forms are created to be a one-eyed-dildo, a flowering-uterus, a green-moody-monster, a robot, and a blue cat (which I don’t get that one).  While it was playing out in the background, the characters began to chant and sing, ‘Don’t Bite Your Friends!’ and I sang along.  Below is a YouTube link to this segment of the show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6UWNA-WQgI

The song is still in me.  And this is me, an adult, at 40 years old with all the other layers of memories, experiences, emotions and feelings within me.  I see the impact that this must have on a young, developing mind system and I am in awe of this.  I realize that the television is teaching my child morals – not me.  And I accept and allow this because through the TV and watching my parents, is how I developed my base layer of morals.

Within this realization, I begin to watch what my son is watching on the television and experience many ‘what the fuck?’ moments as what I’ve learned about myself by using the tools and support available from Desteni, goes ‘against’ what I’m watching on TV.  These shows are teaching my child what to expect and how to survive within these expectations as the current system.

Clever.

So, considering the potential for development with education policies and looking at moral development for the age group of 1-6 months, my starting point is a memory of when my husband first put our son in front of the TV within this age grouping and I remember being pissed-off about it but I did not have any sort of standing back then – as everything inside of me was an absolute mess of ideas, beliefs, and emotions:  I did not want the TV to impress on my child because I was told that TV is bad for kids and yet, at the same time, I was getting a ‘break’, we could relax as a family, and I could further justify that what he was watching was ‘educational’.

Educational. LOL. So true.

If I am being told by others outside of myself that ‘TV is BAD’ for children, this makes me question the statement as no one is saying ‘TV is GOOD’ for children. Hmm.  Myself, I enjoy learning by watching and listening to media – this is how I came to Desteni in the first place and I learn and/or retain more of the material by watching/listening then reading.  Is it because of the fact that I was ‘raised’ by the TV, is it how I, as my mind, learns, or both?

We humans are the mind and from my perspective, when looking practical, responsible solutions for educating ourselves and our children, we need to be aware that we are educating the Human Robot and not a Desteni ‘I’ Process participant nor another who has walked here with Desteni.  We need to approach this curriculum practically within presenting solutions that are effective within how we will be existing within the timeline we’ve established for the implementation of an Equal Money System. Let’s not exclude the effectiveness of the television.  Let’s investigate ways of taking the LIE out Tell-LIE-Vision and making it a PRACTIVISION.